How to Write a Podcast Script: Solo and Interview Templates With a Five-Minute Example

Write for the ear, mark the pauses, and know how many words five minutes holds

A desk set up for recording, with an illustrated scene on the phone. AI-generated, made in Ziztu.

Should you script a podcast at all? For a solo show, yes: write the words. For an interview, no: write the questions and the shape, and leave the answers alone. Everything below follows from that split.

Disclosure: this story was written with the assistance of an AI writing program. I build Ziztu, which has the script tool I link to, so weigh that.

I build Ziztu, which grew out of my own failed attempts to direct high-quality anime and micro dramas with other AI tools. Scripts are where that work starts, and the same habits carry over to audio: one idea per beat, written to be heard and not read.

How many words is five minutes?

Plan on about 140 words a minute for a relaxed read. A rough guide, using the same figures Ziztu’s YouTube script tool uses for spoken scripts:

• About 1 minute: around 150 words.
• About 3 minutes: around 420 words.
• About 5 minutes: around 700 words.

If your script is 900 words and your slot is five minutes, you are cutting, not reading faster.

Rule 1: write short sentences and say them out loud

A sentence that works on a page can trip you on a microphone. Keep sentences under about 20 words. Use contractions. Read every paragraph aloud once, and change any line you stumble on, because a listener will stumble on it too.

Rule 2: mark the pauses and the stresses

Put the performance in the script. Three marks are enough:

• [beat] for a short pause, about a second.
• [pause] for a longer one, after a question or a reveal.
• Capitals for the one word you want stressed. Use them sparingly.

The solo template

1. Cold open (15 to 30 seconds). The most interesting thing in the episode, said plainly. No “welcome back”.
2. Intro line (10 seconds). Show name and what this episode covers.
3. Three beats (about 60 seconds each). One point per beat, with one example each.
4. The turn (30 seconds). The thing the listener did not expect, or the practical step.
5. Close (20 seconds). One sentence of recap and one thing to do. Then stop.

The interview template

You cannot script answers, but you can script the arc:

1. Intro (60 seconds). Who the guest is and why a listener should care, written out in full.
2. Warm-up question. Easy, personal, about the guest’s own path.
3. Three main questions. Each one opens a topic, and each has a follow-up written beside it (“What did that cost you?”).
4. One hard question. Put it at about two thirds of the way through.
5. Closing question. “What should the listener do next?” Then the thank-you, written out.

Write the questions as you would say them. Cut any question that can be answered with yes or no.

A five-minute solo example

The topic: why your first episode should be short. Here is the opening, with marks. It is the first few lines of a script that would run to about 700 words:

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Your first episode should be ten minutes shorter than you think. [beat] I’ll tell you why in five minutes, and then I’ll stop. [pause]

Here’s what happens. You plan a big first episode. You record forty minutes. You edit for a week. [beat] And you never publish, because it’s never good enough.

A short episode has one job. It has to be finished.

The rest of that script would give three beats (finishing beats polishing, short episodes teach you the tools, listeners return to shows that respect their time), a turn, and a close such as: “Record ten minutes today. Publish it by Friday.”

Hearing it before you record

The cheapest test is to hear your script read by someone else. In Ziztu Studio, a spoken line of about 200 characters costs 4 credits. A 700-word script is around 4,000 characters, so about twenty lines and about 80 credits, which is roughly a dollar on the Starter plan. That is my arithmetic from the price list as I read it on 15 October 2026, not a quote, and it will change. Plans are listed here.

If you do not want to pay for anything, read the script aloud into your phone and play it back. The same lines will snag. Ziztu’s podcast script generator also has a Listen button that reads the script back in your browser’s own voice.

Common mistakes

• Writing an essay. Essays have long sentences and paragraphs. Speech has neither.
• No cold open. The opening is where most listeners decide whether to stay.
• A script for an interview. You will sound like you are reading, and the guest will too.
• Ending on three outros. One recap, one action, then silence.

Start with a draft

Start free on Ziztu: draft your script in the podcast script generator, no card. Pick a solo episode, an interview, a voice over or a 30 second radio ad, at 30 seconds, 1 minute or 5 minutes, then rewrite the draft in your own voice. It gives 3 scripts a day with no account and 20 with a free one. (These links open getziztu.com, outside Medium.)

The image in this story was created with an AI image and video tool (Ziztu). Prices were read from the Ziztu price list on 15 October 2026 and can change.